Torture and Impunity in Iraqi Prisons

Part of the deadly serious problem with the Obama administration’s position
on (not) holding accountable CIA torturers, their lawyers, and the Bush administration
officials who authorized and ordered all of these crimes is this: It sends
a message to other governments that if Washington does it, we can too. Especially
governments completely created by the U.S. government.

No governments on the planet are more controlled by the U.S. right now than
the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A new UN human rights report
[.pdf] examining Iraq shows that torture of prisoners by Iraqi authorities
is widespread and accountability is nonexistent. “The lack of accountability
of the perpetrators of such human rights abuses reinforces the culture of impunity,”
the UN bluntly states. The 30-page report by the United Nations Assistance
Mission for Iraq, which examined conditions in Iraq from July to December 2008,
was just released Wednesday.

At times, the report reads as though it could have been written about the
U.S. torture program and the total lack of accountability at Guantanamo and
other U.S.-run prisons. In Iraq, the UN cites “the use of torture as an interrogation
method” and “prolonged periods of detention without charge or access to legal
counsel and the use of torture or physical abuse against detainees to extract
confessions.”

UN investigators said it was of “particular concern” that a senior Iraqi
police official complained that the Iraqi government’s pending ratification
of the Convention Against Torture would “not be helpful,” stating, “How are
we going to get confessions? We have to force the criminals to confess, and
how are we going to do that now?” It sounds like that Iraqi police official
has been listening to Dick Cheney.

The UN says, “There are no documented cases to this day where an official
of the Minister [sic] of Defense has been held accountable for human rights
abuses.” That is exactly the situation within the U.S. Department of Defense
(and Justice and CIA and White House for that matter). “This laxity in the
prosecution is contrary to the international obligations undertaken by Iraq
and to the provisions of the Convention Against Torture.”

Iraq hasn’t even ratified the convention, but the U.S. has – so what does
that say about U.S. conduct?

Some of the worst abuses in Iraqi prisons are said to take place in the northern
autonomous Kurdish region, which has long been an area of major U.S. influence
(going back to the Saddam era). Among the findings of the UN: "claims
of beatings during interrogation, torture by electric shocks, forced confessions,
secret detention facilities, and a lack of medical attention. Abuse is often
committed by masked men or while detainees are blindfolded. In general, detainees
fear the interrogators and investigative personnel more than prison guards."

As of December 2008, there were 41,271 people being held in prisons throughout
Iraq, 15,058 of them in the custody of the U.S.-controlled “Multi-National
Forces.” The UN found that “many” of the prisoners “have been deprived of their
liberty for months or even years in overcrowded cells” and expressed concerns
“about violations of the minimum rules of due process as many did not have
access to defense counsel, or were not formally charged with a crime or appeared
before a judge.”

While the report primarily focused on Iraqi run prisons, it notes that in
U.S.-run prisons “detainees have remained in custody for prolonged periods
without judicial review of their cases.” And remember, the U.S. is in the process
of turning
over more prisoners to Iraqi custody.

It is well known that after Bush launched the so-called War on Terror, the
U.S. torture system was exported from Guantanamo to Afghanistan and Iraq. So,
too, apparently was the disdain for accountability and international law when
the U.S. was setting up the new Iraqi government. Wasn’t Saddam’s torture and
disdain for international law one of the justifications for the invasion (after
the WMD myth was exposed)? This UN report should serve as a sobering reminder
of why it is so important to hold those who created, ordered, justified, and
implemented the U.S. torture program responsible for their crimes. Sadly, the
U.S. at present has zero credibility in confronting these crimes by the Iraqi
authorities.